If Only For A Moment
by FatGlamour
Summary: Pan's thoughts as she sits by Trunks's sick bed and her comfort from a most unlikely person. Trunks/Pan; Possible AU to DBGT. -- "I wanted to do anything to rid him of his pain. Anything. Everything. Yet, all I could do was nothing."


**If Only For a Moment**

_Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Leo Tolstoy _

He had always been older, more attractive, and stronger.

He was a prince. I was common folk. Common among our own race even living with the humans, even being having human blood ourselves. I knew I should be nothing but a beggar to him even if my grandfather was the strongest in, perhaps, the whole universe. It meant nothing that my father defeated the monster Cell. It meant nothing that my family had fought hard and strong against Majin Buu when his own father was too overrun with power in the beginning.

Yes, Vegeta had sacrificed himself, but at the cost of too many lives.

It was at this man that I stared at now.

Vegeta was a cold man. A proud man. A selfish man.

I had always known that.

Now, he stood by his son's sick bed, the dreaded heart virus that had attacked his hated rival, now plagued his own flesh, his own child. Bulma worked endlessly and tirelessly on a cure, trying to find anything helpful from the glass bottle from so long ago. It was her way to handle her son's condition and drive away his possible death mentally and physically. Yet, Vegeta, king to my grandfather's race stood calmly by my husband, staring at him with a blank stare and anger in his eyes.

Anger at what I was, for once, unsure of.

But for once, Vegeta seemed to show no anger at me, his son's chosen mate, the mother to the heir of a nonexistent throne.

My son, my baby whom I loved tail and all, was in another room as far away from his father's bed as the house would allow. I care not about myself getting the illness. My own fate be damned. My baby will live and if Trunks... dies, if I die, I can only hope that my baby will forgive his lovesick, stupid mother in time.

Curse this bond. Curse our prideful, possessive Saiyan blood.

Akira did not understand a lot about his father's illness. He only knew that "better" would come and he hoped that "better" was "sooner" than I seemed to predict. How do you tell a three year old that his father is dying. That his father will never train him to be a strong warrior. How would his father, a warrior to his own eyes who fought against monstrous villains and lived, be portrayed to his son?

I tear my eyes away from my father-in-law's face unto my mate's. Trunks moaned in his sleep, his back arching in pain and I feel my own heart break just the tiniest bit more. His unoccupied hand comes up to grip at his chest, his nails digging at he bandage where his fingernails had made a bloody hole as if he was trying to rid himself of the pain.

By tearing his own heart out.

I leaned over to pull his hand away from his skin but Vegeta beat me to it. He takes Trunks's struggling arm as if it is a dolls limp appendage and binds it to the bed with a bit of ki. Vegeta looks at me and I feel ashamed, unworthy. Vegeta glared at me and I shake off my stare.

Trunks let out a scream that I was afraid that my son could hear even across the compound of Capsule Corp. Tears welled up in my eyes and I leaned over to dab his sweaty brow with a cold cloth. I wanted to do anything to rid him of his pain. Anything. Everything.

Yet, all I could do was nothing.

"Trunks, don't you dare leave me..." My words were but a whisper, yet they meant everything. I felt them pouring out of me, needing him to know before I felt it too late. I needed him to know that he was, is my everything.

I wanted to tell him that I was nothing without him. I wanted to tell him that I couldn't sleep without him beside me. I wanted to tell him that if there was even the slightest chance I could be in his place then I would take it. I wanted to tell him that I loved him more than the there was water in the seas. I wanted to tell him that without him I would be dead inside.

Yet, all I could muster was, "I need you, you big buffoon."

It was then that I felt a strong hand on my shoulder, a hand that had never touched my in this way before. A hand that had only ever touched my when he threw me into a wall of the GR during training.

Something about the grip made the floodgates give way to my eyes, made my body shake, made my body long to be by his side in a world with no cares.

"He's strong. He'll live." His voice was deep, deeper than I could ever remember. Almost as an afterthought he added, "He's my son."

Vegeta had acknowledged his son as an equal, had acknowledged his son's chosen mate and acknowledged their son all in a simple gesture. He stood by me as I cried, his hand ever present on my shoulder, holding me steady. My hand stayed in Trunks's sweaty one, gripping tightly and Vegeta's hand, my father's hand, kept me rooted, breathing, living, sane.

If only for a moment.

If only until the worst came to worse.

But I knew then that I could make it without Trunks. It would not be easy. I didn't want to. Indeed, it would be insanely hard, but I had family to help me.

A mother who would love my son and help to raise him up and a father would see me as a Queen of our forgotten race.

My husband was a King and it was up to me and my child to see his reign continue on.

It didn't stop me from praying to Dende that he would live.

Not even if only for a moment.


End file.
